Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/298

270 captured. "Besides," he insisted, "you knew from the beginning, Lord Edgar, that the besiegers were certain to drive us into the keep, and here we are. I'll warrant the Count had no idea that he would be weeks instead of days before the walls of the Castle of the Red Lion. But weeks he has been, and, behold, he has yet the hardest nut of all to crack! Where we have lost one man, they have lost three, and, best of all, we have done our duty in defending the right, while he is a knave and a villain trying to rob an honest man of his own. If we fall, we fall in a just cause, with consciences at ease, ready to appear before our Maker. If he falls, he will die as the robber dies, struck down at the moment he is contriving only evil!"